Conventionally, an information offerer in the Internet was only one who had an advanced computer technique. However, by using a dedicated information providing program having templates and a plain user interface, a general Internet user has also come to be able to easily provide information on the Internet. As a result, in recent years, information provision via the Internet has started to become popular among general Internet users. One of triggers by which the number of general information offerers has increased as stated above is a system called a Weblog or a Blog. The Weblog is a system to write sentences and to manage sentence data in a simple operation. The Weblog was first recognized as a system for a personal use or a narrow use, for example, to write a diary and to allow familiar friends to browse it. However, journalists, writers, and experts in various fields open their Weblogs to the public widely and use them in order to disclose and exchange their opinions. Thus, at present, the Weblog is being recognized as a system having a wide use and being highly useful. Further, the Weblog is expected as an information providing medium with higher readiness.
As one of techniques to support the expectation for the Weblog as stated above, there is an RSS (RDF Site Summary). While data of the Weblog is relatively long article data, the RSS is composed of a date, an article summary of one line (or at most several lines), an article title, a link destination URL and the like. Because the RSS data is described in the XML (extensible Markup Language) format, it is hard for a user to read the data when no modification is made thereto. Then, the user uses a dedicated application called an RSS reader, and recognizes the RSS data as information. The user registers interesting Weblog sites in a bookmark of the RSS reader. The RSS reader periodically patrols the Weblog sites registered in the bookmark, downloads the RSS delivered by the site, and displays it. Thus, the user can immediately know the appearance of a newly-arrived article without patrolling the sites by his or her own operation. Besides, the RSS is applied not only to the Weblog sites but also to a news site, and further, its application to an e-commerce site, groupware and the like is also attempted.
There are plural kinds of RSS readers, and a ticker type and a mail-client type are typical. FIG. 27 shows a display example of RSS data by a conventional ticker type RSS reader. The ticker type RSS reader sequentially displays limited data (for example, only an article summary and an update date) among data included in the RSS acquired from the Weblog sites at predetermined time intervals. The ticker type RSS reader is excellent in that the ratio of occupation on the screen of a computer is small, a user operation to subscribe to an article is simple, and an operation is unnecessary when the user merely reads an article summary. Incidentally, the ticker type RSS reader can be obtained from some Web sites.
Besides, the mail-client type RSS reader has a user interface similar to a mail reader. In the mail-client type RSS reader, one article included in the RSS is dealt with similarly to one mail, and articles from Weblog sites are stored. The mail-client type RSS reader is characterized by providing abundant functions such as management of the articles according to being read or being not read, and retrieval of the articles. Incidentally, the mail-client type RSS reader can be obtained from some Web sites.
Besides, U.S. Pat. No. 6,727,930 discloses a technique relating to a portable information terminal having a streaming information display. According to this publication, the portable information terminal includes means for scrolling information and advertisement in a ticker-tape format scrolled or rotated across a limited portion of a screen. Thus, a large amount of information, together with the advertisement, can be displayed.
However, the conventional RSS reader has problems as described below.
When plural sites are registered in the bookmark of the RSS reader, there is a case where duplicate or similar articles are updated in two similar sites. Especially, in articles from news sites required to report speedily, such a tendency is often seen. Thus, as compared with the number of articles acquired by the RSS reader, the amount of knowledge obtained by the user is not increased. Especially, in the case of the ticker type RSS reader, because articles are sequentially displayed, the number of articles displayed in a fixed time is limited. As stated above, to display duplicate or similar articles is inefficient from the viewpoint of knowledge acquisition of the user.
When the number of sites registered in the bookmark of the RSS reader becomes large, the number of articles received in a fixed time becomes large. On the other hand, because the time allotted to the user to read articles is limited, there arises a problem that all articles received cannot be read. Thus, similarly to the case of the duplication or similarity of article information, as compared with the number of articles acquired by the RSS reader, the amount of knowledge obtained by the user is not increased. For example, in the ticker type RSS reader, because new articles are sequentially received before all articles are displayed, there often occurs a case where an article is not displayed. Besides, because the ticker type RSS reader sequentially displays articles, articles displayed at the time when the user does not see the article display part of the RSS reader because of being left from a seat or another working become articles which are overlooked. In the mail-client type RSS reader, although all received articles can be stored, the time allotted to the user to activate an application and to read articles is limited. Thus, because new articles are sequentially received before the reading of the already arrived articles is completed, an oversight of an article can occur. As stated above, the oversight of the article is inefficient from the viewpoint of knowledge acquisition of the user.
In some of the mail-client type RSS readers, in order to efficiently come in contact with article information, a folder management function is provided in which sites registered in the bookmark are classified according to a folder tree, and plural sites dealing with articles within similar categories are integrated into one category (holder). In such an RSS reader, when a holder corresponding to a category is selected, articles provided from the sites classified into the holder can be read. At a glance, this function appears to be useful. However, the holder management function does not often function effectively from reasons of (1) an optimum classification method of categories is changed according to the taste of the user and the like, (2) one site deals with plural categories, and the like.
Besides, in addition to the RSS reader having the management function using holders, an RSS reader having a keyword retrieval function already exists. The keyword retrieval function is a very useful function for the user in that even if articles are not managed in advance, means enabling the user to narrow objective articles is provided. For example, the article retrieval using the keyword is useful in the case where an object to be retrieved is clear, and a keyword relevant to the investigation object can be easily recalled. However, when the user reads a newly-arrived article, there are many cases where the object of article access is not determined. Thus, there is a problem that a situation in which the keyword retrieval function can be effectively used is limited.
When the problems as described above are summarized, the problems of the conventional RSS reader are that the user can not efficiently perform information acquisition and knowledge acquisition because of the duplication and similarity of articles, oversight, the trouble of management and the like.